Editorial

As we are writing this editorial, at the end of the year 2024, we are looking at a world in turmoil. Climate change resulted in unprecedented hurricanes and flooding as well as droughts, wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon took countless lives and brought about horrendous destruction. Economically many people feel the strain of financial insecurity and even hardship. By the time this editorial is published, there will be a new government in the USA with many uncertainties about the future direction of the country and even the state of democracy.

Against this backdrop, some of the papers in this issue contemplate contemporary understandings of analytical psychology and its situation in relation to comparative fields. These include Joseph Aguayo's disclosure of new evidence in the Jung-Bion debate, Luisa Zoppi's consideration of the relation between Jung's notion of complexes and the field of trauma studies, and Ignazio Vecchiato and Simona Gazzotti's comparison of the area of mentalization and Jung's concept of compensation.

Others of the papers in this edition can be read in this context of turmoil, uncertainty and trauma. They raise questions relevant not just for the consulting room but also on a collective level as we grapple to understand what is going on globally in different countries and societies. Is there a “still point” with the potential for a radical shift, mentioned in Steve Zemmelman's contribution? Will societies settle for the “lesser coniunctio”, to follow Max Phillips's paper? And what are the possible archetypal self-organising forces which Patricia Skar's article might suggest?

Starting with the papers on contemporary theory, a very interesting contribution to the debate about Jung's influence on Bion, offering new evidence on this topic, comes from Joseph Aguayo in his paper “Conjoining Bion's Reading of C. G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections with his Clinical Seminars in Brazil”. Aguayo reveals that he has in his possession a copy of Jung's work